This invention relates to an automatic door lock control device on a vehicle such as a passenger car or the like.
On some of the vehicles of the above type generally, door locks have been automatically locked and unlocked by door lock operation mechanisms comprising actuators such as motors or solenoids provided on the redspective doors of the vehicles. The actuators on the vehicular doors have been simultaneously operated as a group by the dominative switch accessible by the driver, but the door locks assigned to the occupants other than the driver still have to be manually manipulated at the locations of the other occupants. Thus, the door lock manipulation is troublesome and complicated.
It has been proposed to provide switches accessible by the other occupants so that door locks also can be controlled by the switches accessible by the other occupants from their locations. In such a case, the driver is required to dominate the operation of the actuators on all the vehicular door locks from the viewpoint of safety. As a result, when the driver and other occupants simultaneously manipulate the switches accessible by them, the switches simultaneously issue commands the actuator assigned to the driver. If the commands coincide with each other, there is no difficulty. However, the commands from the switches accessible by the driver and other occupants may conflict with each other, and the conflicting commands are undesirable in the automatic control of door locks through the use of actuators. This problem has to be solved.